Mimma (Deborah Caprioglio) is tricked into working in a brothel for fifteen days by her strapped-for-cash boyfriend. Rechristened "Paprika" by the house madame (Martine Brochard of Brass' THE VOYEUR), she falls in love with her first client, a sailor named Franco (Stephane Ferrara). Although she becomes a smash in several of the best bordellos in Italy, she still longs for Franco. When the law closes down the bordellos, Paprika has managed to marry a rich old man (much to the consternation of his greedy relatives) and inherit a fortune that allows her to have a happy ending with Franco.

PAPRIKA is one of Brass' most enjoyable and lavish films (producer Augusto Caminito also greenlighted the slick FLASHDANCE/FAME-inspired giallo MURDEROCK and eventually took over directing the troubled and uneven yet visually arresting NOSFERATU IN VENICE which he also wrote). Star Caprioglio was briefly married to Klaus Kinski at the time of filming and literally struts into every shot with uninhibited abandon and Brass mainstay Jost Jakob provides some striking costumes. A recurrent theme in Brass' work that makes an appearance here is the equating of the closing down of bordellos with the death of the art of eroticism. Brass mingles the tragic and the comic well here. In a scene where one of the prostitutes is discovered to be deathly ill, both as a doctor and a priest are within easy reach as clients.

Eric Cotenas